The grey city

I once read on a blog I love that every Japanese city has an adjective which defines it, known to everybody.
In Italy it's more or less the same.
Rome is "chaotic".
It's funny 'cause most of the people who say that have never been to Rome. But it's reknown. Full of people, full of cars, traffic is crazy and people don't walk: they almost run.
Venice is "romantic". It's THE city for lovers. I've never understood why, because yes: it's beautiful and has a singular architecture, it's almost dreamy at night.
But I don't find it romantic. It's humid, uncomfortable and it's also falling to pieces due to the nonexistant maintanance.

And Milan...well, Milan is just GREY.

Everything here is grey: weather, buildings, even people. After living here a couple of months you find your skin is becoming paler and paler, with a greyish nuance.
That's why many people are "tan-aholic" (is that a word??)and get sunlamp almost every week.
It's not like the sun is never shining here, of course there are wonderful periods (like this week) when the temperature is high without being annoying and you can take a walk...into the city. Yeah there's more or less only one big park, it's beautiful but you might get out from there with a hundred bites of mosquitos.

Living here is especialy difficult for people coming from seaside cities in the south of Italy (like me) where it is perfectly normal to get out from the office at 2 pm and go directly to the beach to have lunch with your family and enjoy the rest of the day. This happens from may to september, depending on the temperature.



In my hometown it's not conceivable that you stay home and don't go to the beach if the sun is shining. Even with a whirlwind (which we are pretty accostumed to).Even if it's 42° C outside.